iSight Camera

Astro HQ made news headlines recently when they announced a new feature coming to their Astropad drawing app and their upcoming Luna Display. It was an easy way to incorporate an additional button into their app without sacrificing screen space by using the front facing camera. It appears Apple disagreed with how innovating this idea was.

Apple on Friday launched the iSight Camera Replacement Program for iPhone 6 Plus. In a support document, first spotted by MacRumors, the company says it has discovered that, in some devices, the iSight camera has a component that may fail, causing your photos to look blurry.

The program only applies to the iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple says that a very small percentage of devices has been affected. But if your 6 Plus is producing blurry photos, and has an eligible serial number, the company is offering to replace your handset’s rear-facing camera free of charge.

Hackers have long had the ability to infiltrate a person’s personal computer, and enable their webcam without their knowledge. We’ve been hearing horror stories about this for years, where users were covertly spied on through their PC’s camera.

But Mac owners have always been led to believe that this can’t happen with the iSight camera, because it’s designed to always illuminate the adjacent green light every time it’s active. Researchers have found a way, though, to get around this behavior…

This is kind of interesting. Without cryptic event invites or rampant speculation, Apple just introduced a new product. No, it’s not the iWatch or anything like that. It’s just a new version of its fifth generation iPod touch.

As most of you know, Apple unveiled the 5th-gen touch during its iPhone 5 event last fall. But up until now, it’s only been available in 32GB and 64GB. The new one comes with 16GB of storage, and few other changes…

A few weeks ago, early iPhone 5 adopters started complaining of a purple haze in their photos taken with the handset. Apple responded to the issue, saying that users could remedy this by repositioning the phone.

But if that isn’t good enough for you, you might be interested to hear that Fotodiox, an Illinois-based case-maker, has created an iPhone 5 case that it claims will eliminate the purple flare. Meet the camHoodie…

In addition to the back panel scratching and light leak complaints, early iPhone 5 purchasers have spotted another flaw in Apple’s latest handset: a purple haze or halo is appearing in some photos taken with its rear camera.

Over the past few weeks, users have been reporting that when the iPhone 5’s iSight camera is pointed at or near a bright light source, a purple flare appears in the photo. And this weekend, Apple responded to the issue…

It’s been a big day so far, but we’re not finished yet. Continuing on with our iPhone 5 coverage, we’ve come across a new clip that compares the video quality of the new handset with its predecessor.

Now, since the 5 uses the same 8MP camera sensor as the 4S, you’d think that video quality would be the same. But just as we discovered with still photos, there is a noticeable difference between the two…

OmniVision Technologies yesterday announced two new camera sensors for smartphones and tablets and guess what? Both could be a perfect fit for a 2013 iPhone, if not for the next one.

We’re talking about 16-megapixel sensors that shoot 4K video at a remarkable 60 frames per second.

Per Chipworks’ teardown analysis, Apple is using OmniVision’s OV5642 camera module inside the iPhone 4. Another teardown, also by Chipworks, shows OmniVision’s second-generation OV5650 back illumination and OV297AA modules being used on the iPad 2, the new iPad and the iPod Nano music player.

If Apple were to adopt these new OmniVision 16-megapixel camera modules, you could be capturing video either in 4K2K or Quad Full High Definition (QFHD) resolution with an iPhone in your pocket.

Now, if only you had a 4K display to watch these clips in their full ultra high-resolution glory…

Now that the new iPad is finding its way into the hands of lucky buyers across the globe, we are beginning to hear reports of first impressions and as always, teardowns. One such teardown has come courtesy of Chipworks.

As we already knew, the new iPad comes packed to the gills with technology, and that battery is as massive as we expected – you’ve got to power that 4G somehow! – but Chipworks has also taken a closer look at the two cameras that Apple has used this time around.

Perhaps predictably, it appears that Apple has chosen to re-use parts from its existing product lines for the new iPad, which while not necessarily a bad thing, is certainly worth a mention…

Mac users may remember Apple’s iSight branding for its standalone and built-in webcams. However in recent years, Apple hasn’t used the appellation, replacing it with the FaceTime branding. But bringing the term back, iSight was reintroduced during yesterday’s iPad announcement. Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller showed off the new iPad’s camera, which was given the name iSight.

As noted by MacRumors, Apple has also extended the iSight name to the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S’s rear camera…